DS's Next Top Artist - All Stars!

Hello everyone, and welcome. Since 2011, DS's Next Top Artist has seen fantastic songs from all kinds of different acts, from indie, to pop, to mainstream, to R&B, to dance, to soul. This edition of the game will reunite all 190 acts from all six series, to compete against each other head to the head for the illustrious title of DS's Next Top Artist All Star!

Here's how the game works:

1. We'll be welcoming back a number of previous mentors, who will be mentoring their previous acts once again. The whole game will take place in this thread.

2. The first round will consist of heats of three or four. We will lose a total of 62 acts, leaving us with 128 for round 2, 64 for round 3, 32 for round 4, 16 for round 5, 8 for the quarter finals, 4 for the semis, and then 2 for the exciting final.

3. All acts will need a maximum of eight songs (if they're lucky enough to get to the final 2), and there are no themes so you can start using your best songs straight away!

4. Some mentors are no longer on DS, or have decided not to take part, or have decided to only mentor some but not all of their acts. Rather than kick the unwanted acts to the curb, everyone who IS playing has a chance to proxy mentor them! More on that in the next post.

5. For round 1, heats will take place over two days, three at a time. This may alter in later rounds.

6. Finally, I thought it would be a nice change if as many people as possible host rounds. If you would like to host some heats, just let me know and I'll put your name down. This would just consist of initiating three heats, receiving the votes, and then announcing the results, but you can apply to host multiple times if you like.

To make things fairer, everyone taking part can only have a maximum of 10 acts. Therefore, if you played every series so far, you will have 8 acts already, and will be eligible only for a maximum of two more. If you've only played one series, you COULD get eight or nine of the acts below!

You may request up to 10 of the acts below by PMing me and ranking them 1 - 10, 1 being the act you want the most. This is just so any conflicts of interest will be sorted out, and I will endeavour to make sure that as many people as possible have proxy acts, and will try and give everyone either their first or second choice for definite. Even if you've never taken part in NTA before, you can request proxy acts!

I have assigned most of the proxy acts right now A LOT of people came forward requesting them, so I've tried to make sure everyone has at least two acts, or at least their first or second choice. Not everyone will have the same number of acts unfortunately, but I think everyone has a good chance with at least one of their acts

Let us shed a tear for the following 10 acts who have not been claimed so far If you'd like any of them, just PM me.

I have finally distributed the proxy acts! *applause* Everyone has at least two of their top 10. Unfortunately, due to the number of people who requested proxies, not everyone has an equal number of acts. Some people have more simply because they requested acts that no one else did, and some people have less due to requesting 10 very popular acts.

So, here they (almost) all are, with proxies in bold. If you have no acts in bold, that means you didn't request any proxies. What are you like?